Study shows how patterns in LLM training data can lead to “parahuman” responses. If you were trying to learn how to get other people to do what you want, you might use some of the techniques found in a book like Influence: The Power of Persuasion. Now, a pre-print…
Department of Energy is not serious about engaging with the scientific community. More than 85 climate scientists declared the Department of Energy’s new climate report unfit for policymaking in a comprehensive review released Tuesday. The DOE’s report cherry-picked evidence, lacked peer-reviewed studies to support its questioning of the detrimental…
The Pentagon says the move will save money, but acknowledges risk to military readiness. President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that US Space Command will be relocated from Colorado to Alabama, returning to the Pentagon’s plans for the command’s headquarters from the final days of Trump’s first term in the…
A structure like those found on water striders’ legs keeps a robot out of the water. Robots can serve pizza, crawl over alien planets, swim like octopuses and jellyfish, cosplay as humans, and even perform surgery. But can they walk on water? Rhagobot isn’t exactly the first thing that…
A 3D reconstruction of the Shroud of Turin, “jelly ice,” regenerating snail eyes, and more It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we…
One of the world’s foremost climate models now faces funding threats. In the 1960s, meteorologist Edward Lorenz was running weather simulations on an early computer system when he realized that a small rounding difference led to extremely divergent weather predictions. He later called this idea the butterfly effect to…
It’s a closely watched test of whether corporate alliances on climate efforts violate antitrust laws. This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Since 2022, Republican lawmakers in Congress and state…
Firefly Aerospace reveals why its Alpha booster exploded after launch in April. Welcome to Edition 8.08 of the Rocket Report! What a week it’s been for SpaceX. The company completed its first successful Starship test flight in nearly a year, and while it wasn’t perfect, it sets up SpaceX…
The species’s boundaries in North America seem to have been fairly fluid. We tend to lump all mammoths together as big, hairy elephant-like beasts with enormous tusks. But there were a number of mammoth species, including less furry ones that inhabited temperate regions. And the furry ones include at…
“Once a species enters, they never leave,” interior secretary says. But there’s more to the story. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” It’s the ominous slogan for “Hotel California,” an iconic fictional lodging dreamed up by the Eagles in 1976. One of…
